Awakening the Divine Spark
Chapter 198: She?

Chapter 198: She?

Lee watched Han Jin for a moment, and then said, "You might feel you’re being oppressed or whatever. But you know, you have a loving father and endless prospects in your life. Let’s take the alchemy, for example. In most worlds people have no clue it exists – the best they can do is to boil random herbs to make tea if they get sick."

"No way!" Han Jin widened his eyes in disbelief.

"Way." Lee said with a nod, "In less developed worlds people live thirty to forty years on average. Well, except for royalties."

"Royalties?" Han Jin asked.

"Mhm. The rulers. The kings." Lee said, "They live in huge, luxurious palaces and don’t do shit. Especially queens and princesses. They laze around all day, take baths and wear pretty dresses while commoners slave their lives away."

"Princesses? Tell me about them!" Han Jin’s eyes suddenly lit up.

’So you’re interested in girls after all?’ Lee grinned to himself.

But out loud he said, "I’m sorry I can’t tell you much. I know only one and she’s a real bitch. I’d rather tell you about a world with advanced technology where people drive carriages without horses and even fly ..."

Their conversation was slowly becoming natural, but Lee felt something was off. Besides the fact that he was shitting on world’s elites, his task here was to introduce the kid to the women stuff. Ignoring the patriarch’s instructions he lost himself, and began to tell about fun things that could lead the young lad astray, but for some reason no one interrupted him.

This was wrong!

’Oh, no!’ Lee inwardly exclaimed.

He was hundred percent sure there was no one behind the door protecting the heir – the elemental master, Daral, was either out or dead. Lee’s first impulse was to call out to verify his suspicion, but he swallowed the shout, at the same time wrecking his brains what he could do if Shade or even Han Zeming appeared on the doorstep.

"Now you’re just making things up." Han Jin said, throwing a skeptical glance at Lee, not noticing the change in his expression, "Even I know the only way to imitate flying is to use artifacts like gravity step."

"Sure, sure ..." The kid’s words brought Lee back to reality. He had to keep the conversation going to potentially delay the person who was waiting for the right moment to assault them.

He said, "Sorry about that. I’ll tell you about the princess I met ... she was really mean one, but very strong and talented ..."

While talking, Lee got up, trying to remain as silent as possible, and slowly walked to the window. Unfortunately, there was no way to escape through it – while the view on the mountains was incredibly beautiful, below was a chasm several hundred yards deep.

Inwardly cursing Patriarch Han for putting his child in a room with no emergency exits, Lee looked around the again. There was nothing – no trapdoors, no places to hide. Only bed and a wardrobe. Basically they were two helpless people who had lost their only protector, and no matter what backing Han Jin had – currently it was of no use.

’Right! Backing!’ Lee’s eyes lit up.

There was no way for him to call Han Jin’s father or anyone in the manor for help without provoking an immediate attack. But he had his own backing!

’Please, work! Please work!’ He silently prayed and fished out two golden rings from his pocket. Obviously, working as a maid he couldn’t wear gold, but now it was the perfect time to use these things.

He set the smaller ring in the larger one, and with a soft click they became one. Technically the beacon should’ve been activated, but Lee didn’t feel anything out of norm. Just in case this one was broken, he joined the other two rings as well and put both beacons in the floor next to each other.

"What are you doing?" Han Jin asked, observing Lee’s actions in confusion.

"You know, princesses are really an arrogant bunch ..." Lee spouted random nonsense, mostly for the ears of the person behind the door, while focusing on the two rings in front of him.

He didn’t manage to finish the sentence when two small, translucent eyes, not larger than peas appeared few inches above the floor.

"Get us out of here!" Lee whispered, and a heartbeat later a man sized rift opened in front of him.

The problem was that he heard the door behind him breaking, but he didn’t even look that way. He took a quick step towards Han Jin, grabbed the kid by shoulders, and directly threw in the rift.

"No!"

Lee heard an angry shout, but didn’t pay it any attention. He jumped towards the rift himself, but was stopped a half foot away when someone grabbed his hand. The grip was iron tight and, purely on instinct, Lee released an intense burst of elemental energy, all three types of them, through his feet to propel himself forward.

It happened so fast he didn’t notice the excruciating pain that accompanied the move. All he knew was he needed to get out of there by any means possible.

It wasn’t Lee’s first time going through a rift and he was only dazed when he fell in the lush green grass. He could hear the birds chirp nearby and a refreshing breeze reminded him he was still alive. Han Jin was in much worse condition – the kid was on his fours, uncontrollably vomiting.

"Everyone, dismissed!" Lee heard Wang Zhen’s loud voice, and only now he realized they had arrived at the wide field next to the Nethermoon sect’s rift gate. Apparently the sect master was holding a speech or a lecture when he called for help, and the old man’s decisive action saved them both.

The problem was – they arrived in front of the eyes of thousands of disciples, currently gawking at their sorry state. And while Han Jin’s natural reaction was understandable and even cute in a way, then the bloody upper half of the man’s body, still grabbing on to Lee’s hand, was revolting.

Trying to flee, Lee didn’t notice that it was Shade who caught him. And it was the man’s instinctive move that cost him his life.

Lee, who was at most two thirds of his weight, suddenly burst forth into the rift, pulling him along. Shade had activated his earth spark and knew he had the upper hand over someone who couldn’t cultivate. For a split moment he blanked out when the person whom he thought was a woman, a non-cultivator, overpowered him.

The sect master closed the rift the moment Lee stepped through it, brutally cutting off a part of Shade’s upper body – the head, hands and shoulders, that is. His remains were still clinging to Lee’s hand, slightly convulsing, but the man was already dead.

The pain from heavily bleeding feet finally registered in Lee’s brain. He shook off Shade’s remains to the side, tore off the upper part of his maid’s outfit and began to put crude bandages on his feet.

He noticed few people arriving, and even without glancing at them knew they were the elders of the sect. His stunt turned out to be too public to hide anything, and he had to formulate his reasoning properly to not get in trouble.

Lee looked at the sect master and was shocked for a split moment, seeing the old man blushed and his bald head covered in sweat. Apparently opening and closing rifts on demand without a rift gate wasn’t as easy as he thought. Or maybe it was the fact that he used the rift to cut Shade in halves.

It didn’t matter, though. Inwardly shaking his head to clear out unnecessary thoughts, Lee said, "Congratulations! You just saved the heir of the Han clan from an assassination attempt. Sect master Wang, please meet Han Jin! She’s the daughter of Patriarch Han and the future ruler of the Hantan city!"

"She?" The surrounding elders threw a questioning glance at the boy, still standing on all fours next to Lee.

Han Jin’s expression was even more shocked, but Lee grinned in response, and said, "What? Did you really think no one could figure it out?"